MidCentral tackles GP shortage head-on

09/05/2008 | GP Shortage

Faced with increasing shortages of GPs, MidCentral District Health Board is injecting $1.3 million over the next three years into the attraction, training and retention of general practitioners.

An ageing workforce, coupled with a shift in graduates’ perceptions about general practice, has created a threat of nationwide shortages of general practitioners.  This threat is heightened in the MidCentral district, an area which already has low numbers of general practitioners. 

Taking a proactive approach in tackling this potential crisis, MidCentral is developing training opportunities for graduates of medicine who want to specialise as GPs. General Manager of Funding at MidCentral, Mike Grant, says the direction the DHB is taking provides medical students with a clear career pathway.

“It is important to give medical students the opportunity to experience primary health care first hand if they are to seriously consider it as career choice,” says Mr Grant. “We hope that we can offer this to trainee interns through our programme. What we are offering is a predictable, supported career pathway for trainees, enabling them to enter the region as interns and leave as qualified specialists in general practice.”

Project Manager, Dr Warwick Davenport says the funding allocated to this project is the next step in strengthening the DHB’s primary health service.

“The DHB has already made a significant investment in support services for primary care,” says Dr Davenport. “For example Decision Support Software; community cardiology, diabetes, respiratory and cancer nurses; PHO-based dieticians; exercise advisors and smoking cessation advisors. The next step is to address the sustainability of general practice throughout the district.”
 
2009 will see twelve trainee interns from the Wellington Clinical School arrive in Palmerston North hospital to commence their specialist training in general practice. Interns will be financially supported by MidCentral through allowances towards their accommodation and further education.

In addition to attracting interns to the district, MidCentral has also put in measures to financially support and facilitate interns’ ongoing training throughout their house-surgeon and registrar years.

“Our current GPs are already under a great deal of pressure with their existing workloads,” explains Dr Davenport. “As registrars need to be mentored and trained by a current GP we have allocated funding to develop a training framework which will assist in the development of infrastructure required to enable the training to flourish across the MidCentral district.”

Plans are also underway to develop a medical education workgroup which will be responsible for oversight of the training framework. “We hope that, in time, through the success of this programme, MidCentral will be recognised as a centre of excellence in the area of primary health training,” says Dr Davenport.

For more information please contact:
Caroline Rowe
Communications Advisor – Funding Division
MidCentral District Health Board
021 162 0274